Abstract
The artivism of Zdena Kolečková, Czech intermedia artist with Czech-German-Polish roots, focuses on the disinheritance of the Sudeten landscape and critically examines the transformation of the region. With the enforced displacement of Jews and Germans during and after the WWII, a significant part of the Sudetenland's cultural identity vanished, to be superimposed by new communities which till today struggle to find their roots. Impact of social and cultural uprooting has been further exacerbated by decades of intensive contamination of local air, soil and streams from lignite mines, industrial sites and chemical plants. Environmental and social changes have had together a deep impact on the life of local communities.This paper will introduce Kolečková's artistic exhibition projects, for example Strange Botany and Other Stories (2018) in which she uses multiple means of artistic expression (installations, photography, drawings, performance) to draw attention to environmental as well as social and historical issues of the region. Her artistic practice, often combining affective modes of expression with scientific research, represents an intersection of intimate family memories, collective memory and memory of the landscape. She shows how in all these layers, traces of the past become more and more invisible: plant species are threatened with extinction, the German inscriptions on buildings, visual traces of former German presence, are covered with new layers of paint, the Sudeten dialect has almost disappeared, the expulsion is often neglected in public discourse, but continues to burden the relationship between Czechs and Germans.
However, Kolečková's work is not only about uncovering the remains of the past, the focus is also on the future. In that sense, her works raise questions that are highly relevant today. How can we deal with disbalances in natural environment and in relations between individuals or communities of different ethnics or nations? How do we remember the past and envision our future when part of our cultural identity has been systematically neglected or lost?